Overview
Every important business decision tests a leader’s ability to assess risk and reward and to capitalize on opportunities while managing risks. Project failures, program failures, and plan failures can result from excessive risk aversion or recklessness—two ends of the same spectrum.
Successful leaders do not try to avoid risk entirely; they recognize the potential for risk to adversely impact productivity and organizational effectiveness, and they manage it through a combination of quantitative methodologies, prudent policies, and intuitive judgments.
This course focuses on helping learners develop leadership and decision-making potential, specifically, the ability to recognize, assess, and manage risk in a dynamic and competitive environment. It will introduce the four major categories of risk—hazard, financial, operations, and strategic—and the frameworks and standards used to manage risk across an enterprise.
Objectives
After completing this course, learners will be able to:
- define risk and explain the role that risk management plays in sound decision-making;
- list the four major risk categories, and describe their characteristic negative impacts on productivity and organizational performance;
- describe the most important international risk management standards;
- measure, assess, prioritize, and treat risk in a framework that balances risk and reward;
- apply commonly-used risk analysis techniques, and describe the benefits and practical limitations of the most popular risk management methods;
- develop an awareness of risk, and create a culture of risk awareness;
- discuss risk management ideas and information with other management professionals.
Evaluation
Students will be evaluated based on their participation in weekly online discussions (40%) and one comprehensive assignment. (60%). To pass the course, students must achieve 60% or more on each of the credit components.